13 games of 7s action in the sweltering West Coast sun!

On Tuesday 1st November the Junior Rugby 7s teams were in action for the West Coast Secondary School Tournament, this year hosted at McLean Park, Blaketown on a stunning West Coast day.

We hosted team a total of six boys teams Buller HS, Westland HS, John Paul II, Greymouth HS and a mixed team whish included players from South Westland Area School, along with 10 females who we split into two teams to play some five on five rugby just for the girls.

There was some excellent talent on show from all schools and definitely some players to watch in the future as they progress through secondary school. Some of the games were heavy on one end of the scoreboard but the opposition never gave up showing the great character of all the players involved.

The Greymouth HS A team came away with strong wins against Westland HS and Mixed Schools, then we fell to a very talented Buller HS team in the semifinals. The 3rd/4th play off against Westland HS ended in a draw which gave a good indication of the game with nothing between the two teams at the end of the day.

Our Greymouth HS B team full of Year 9 students worked very hard throughout the day against some tough competition but always gave their best. The opening game against JPII was a tough one as JPII has many talented players who a re tough to contain, game two against BHS was another tough loss. The final game of the day was against the Mixed Schools team which had players from all other schools filling the gaps along with the SWAS players - this was great to give the SWAS players the opportunity to be involved in the day as they did not have a full team.

In the girls competition we had students from Greymouth HS, John Paul II and Westland HS to combine making two teams of five players, this gave them a great opportunity to only play against each other and opening the door for more female involvement in rugby for the girls on the West Coast! We split the teams reasonability even, which made the two games they played very exciting!

Thank you to Rob Maitand and Will England for officiating throughout the day, excellent to have these great people in our community to assist us for events like this.

Also a big thank you to Coach McGirr for his forever great enthusiasm with coaching our junior teams at GHS, we are very lucky to have multiple members of our staff with the skill set to get involved with our school teams.